Even with the advancements in automotive HVAC systems, it is still impossible to keep a constant temperature throughout the entire vehicle cabin. Usually the driver and the front seat passenger get to benefit from the desired temperature setting, while the backseat varies greatly. Today, almost every vehicle on the market will tell you what the temperature is outside, but not one tells you the temperature inside the vehicle. Parents with infants and young children under 50lbs are strongly encouraged to orient car seats in rear-facing position. This makes it very difficult to know if the temperature around the car seat is safe and comfortable for baby. Concerned parents are forced to continually reach in their backseat to understand if it is too hot or too cold for their baby and frequently changing the temperature settings in the cabin. Furthermore, it creates a distracted driver who is not fully attentive on the road.

Let us introduce the TherMOMeter Mirror. This mirror straps to a headrest like any other baby mirror. However, this mirror has a temperature sensor with an LED readout indicating the current temperature ambient to baby’s seat. In addition, the LED will illuminate an indicative color depending on the temperature range; green for desired, yellow for just outside of desired, and red for dangerous temperatures. The display on the LED will read normal left to right when buckling baby in, but is viewed through the vehicles rear view mirror reversely to allow the driver to maintain their eyes forward. This eliminates the need for parents to constantly reach back to the child and taking their eyes off the road for extended period of time.

The TherMOMeter Mirror is a novel idea that offers commuting parents’ comfort in knowing that the back-seat temperature is safe for their baby. At the same time, it reduces distracted driving by enabling the driver to keep their eyes forward and focused on the road. Ultimately the TherMOMeter Mirror improves quality of life for babies, and enhanced safety for traveling families.

Each year over three million babies are born in the United States. With each new addition to the family comes the need to purchase the appropriate safety equipment necessary to care for baby. We believe that the TherMOMeter Mirror could penetrate at least 3% of this market annually providing a potential for 100k units per year.

We have early tooling and piece price quotations considering 100k units per year capacity. Tooling costs are estimated at $15k-30k for injection molding all plastic components on a 150 ton press. At the stated annual capacity, we are expecting $0.80/unit for all plastic components. Electronics are anticipated to be approximately $1.50/unit. In total we expect overall BOM costs to be < $3.00/unit in production. Assessing existing products on the market today we see $25-30/unit as our entry price point. We are open to considering outside investors that would be willing to help us complete costing analysis for assembly and packaging, as well as finalizing our go-to-market strategy.